In finite group theory, a p-stable group for an odd prime p is a finite group satisfying a technical condition introduced by Gorenstein and Walter (1964, p.169, 1965) in order to extend Thompson's uniqueness results in the odd order theorem to groups with dihedral Sylow 2-subgroups.
There are several equivalent definitions of a p-stable group.
We give definition of a p-stable group in two parts.
The definition used here comes from (Glauberman 1968, p. 1104).
Let p be an odd prime and G be a finite group with a nontrivial p-core
(
Then G is p-stable if it satisfies the following condition: Let P be an arbitrary p-subgroup of G such that
is a normal subgroup of G. Suppose that
x ∈
is the coset of
Now, define
as the set of all p-subgroups of G maximal with respect to the property that
Let G be a finite group and p an odd prime.
Then G is called p-stable if every element of
is p-stable by definition 1.
Let p be an odd prime and H a finite group.
Then H is p-stable if
and, whenever P is a normal p-subgroup of H and
If p is an odd prime and G is a finite group such that SL2(p) is not involved in G, then G is p-stable.
If furthermore G contains a normal p-subgroup P such that
is a characteristic subgroup of G, where
is the subgroup introduced by John Thompson in (Thompson 1969, pp.